Play the fool

There is an over abundance of eternal optimists who find some kind of satisfaction in doing things, not just badly, but proudly.  People who regale me with stories of their misadventures, want me to applaud them, but it usually makes me cringe.

The downside of these home grown videos and stories are the real people and animals who lives are in jeopardy because another person didn't really think. 

I suppose it is kinder to laugh than reprimand someone who doesn't really understand that buffoonery destroys the quality of life for those who have to suffer this sort of abominable treatment, but kinder to whom?

The child whose hand is burned because he was neglected, the dog run over because he got loose?  Charlie Chaplin was funny because his actions were orchestrated -- not the haphazard thing we like to imagine.

Our society pays people to play the fool.  Not well and not often, but just enough to keep them at it.  It would be kinder if they did not.